CBO: Trump Threat To Cut Obamacare Subsidies Would Raise Premiums 25%

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report on Tuesday evaluating the potential impact of the Trump administration making good on a repeated threat to cut off Obamacare’s cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments to insurers.

The CBO found that the move would cause premiums for people whose care is supported by the payments to climb 20 percent higher by 2018 and 25 percent higher by 2020. They also estimate that the move would increase the federal deficit by $194 billion dollars by 2026, and it would lead to 5 percent of the U.S. population having no access to a non-group insurer.

The deficit would increase, the CBO explained, because insurers would compensate for the lost subsidies by raising premiums across the board, forcing more people to depend on government tax credits.

Read the full report below:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alice Ollstein is a reporter at Talking Points Memo, covering national politics. She graduated from Oberlin College in 2010 and has been reporting in DC ever since, covering the Supreme Court, Congress and national elections for TV, radio, print, and online outlets. Her work has aired on Free Speech Radio News, All Things Considered, Channel News Asia, and Telesur, and her writing has been published by The Atlantic, La Opinión, and The Hill Rag. She was elected in 2016 as an at-large board member of the DC Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Alice grew up in Santa Monica, California and began working for local newspapers in her early teens.